Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy 1st grader complaining a lot about hw?

So what's a fairly normal level of complaining about homework, or work in general?

My 1st grader is such a grouch this year. I'm trying to support him and figure out if something is off. He has about an hour of school homework a week and another hour of math homework for AoPS outside of school. But he keeps complaining that he has homework "ALLLL the time" and so much more homework than his 3 year old sister. (Hmm, yes?)

I'm disappointed in his crappy attitude. I told him he could quit AoPS if he wanted (he does afterschool math because he wants to after all) and then he balked and said he wanted to stay in that but didn't want to do the homework on the weekend. So now we'll try to get his AoPS and school homework done by Friday I guess. He has a moderate level of activities -- he's busy but not ridiculously so...

Is he just being a 1st grader? Or should we keep tweaking this until we find something that works better?

He has all these opportunities... great. But if he's just a sulky unhappy kid, I feel like we're missing the point.

And I should add that he's also been complaining that his school doesn't have enough math in it that interests him. "They don't do the things I like to do."

Actually his 1st grade teacher is at least willing to give him harder math worksheets after he finishes his work, and lets him have free time when he's done, which is much better than the forced participation in K level math groups, which were way below his level.

He's disappointed he didn't get to skip 1st grade math, but he needs to suck it up and move on. I don't think he's being fair in his complaints about school, but I don't know how to get his perspective back to a more positive one.

Yeah, I wasn't sure how much I wanted to confuse the questions. There are a few things going on there and I'm probably not sorting through them well.

I expect him to skip a year ahead in math next year (it's hard to skip 1st grade but easy to skip subsequent grades in our district), but I hate to talk that up as the solution to everything because it may still not be the kind of math he wants to do (AoPS is more fun) or hard enough (can only skip one year at once).

Instead of homework I think he'd like to read. He's consuming upper elementary chapter books right now in a way that's just insane. He also likes to read ahead in the Beast Academy books he'll get to in future years for after school math. And some legos and stuff like that. Just downtime.

He does his homework in aftercare at school and really at home just needs to make corrections and do about 15 min of work. I think he spends much more time and energy dreading it than he does actually doing the work.

Maybe just some help organizing it or approaching it.

Is this fairly normal?

I think Portia hit the nail on the head regarding the "wasting time".

I, too, have a 1st grader and a 3 year old and I hear the same type of complaints! I think it's because DD6 would rather be playing with DD3 than doing "busy work" because unfortunately most of her homework is too easy and not stimulating enough. And after a full day of school, I can understand that she's bored out of her mind and wanting to move on to something else. Now, if I go online and print out worksheets geared towards 2-4 grade levels up, she will do them all afternoon. She loves them. So I think the difficulty (or rather lack thereof) of the work is the issue, not that she has to do it. I've explained to DD6 that sometimes homework will be easy but she still needs to do it, just as she would need to do more challenging work as well, and that's just part of life. I've also told her that we need to do our work first before we play. At this point in the school year, it's finally beginning to soak in so I'm hearing less complaining than I did at the start of the year.

No specific advice but our district has a policy about time spent on homework. It is grade level x 10 minutes/day math+ELA combined plus an equal amount of time for independent reading homwework. So for first grade, total 20 minutes per day max. If the kid is consistently spending more time that that, the district encourages parents to talk to the teachers and something is amiss.HTH.

Thanks. I do feel like he needs help too, but it's useful to hear that echoed back so I don't feel like I'm overreacting.

Lots to think about here -- I really appreciate it.

I don't know if there are any easy solutions. I have advocated to the point of exhaustion and I can't do anything about school math until next year when he can test out of 2nd grade math.

There are some great ideas here though. We'll keep working on it.

It's great how parenting instincts kick in here. We should listen to them. Last night we had massive tears about the homework due today and school and everything else. So we ignored it and cuddled up with a book. No, that isn't a long term strategy for success. But I do think it's what he needed at the time. And at 6 years old he's not going to flunk out of school or anything...

If he is doing his homework in aftercare and then doing 15 minutes more at home then he is spending too much time on homework. If he is doing the easy sheets in maths then harder ones then he is doing twice as much work as everyone else and it is reasonable to feel hard done by especially if the hard sheets are also too easy.

I'm not really convinced that first graders should be doing homework.

Actually, I'm not really convinced that anyone in elementary school should be doing homework.

He does homework in aftercare only on Tue/Wed and doesn't seem to mind that part.

He does ~15 min of additional homework at home a week, usually only on Wed or Thr, which he absolutely hates.

Then he does anot hour of afterschool math on Saturday, which he says he dislikes only because it is doing homework on the weekend. Despite liking the work in general he doesn't want to do it on the weekend.

All of this may change as we address whatever the real pain point is, I think.

He does do double math sheets and the second sheets are too easy, but I think he likes them regardless because he was annoyed he only gets to do them once a day... but I get your point. He has 3x the amt of math homework when all is said and done.

Yeah. And he seems to have more than is typical, because of the language immersion component. I think they feel they need a little extra practice, but it makes for a lot of work for a 1st grader, especially.